Contextualised strong reciprocity explains selfless cooperation despite selfish intuitions and weak social heuristics

Abstract Humans frequently cooperate for collective benefit, even in one-shot social dilemmas. This provides a challenge for theories of cooperation. Two views focus on intuitions but offer conflicting explanations. The Social Heuristics Hypothesis argues that people with selfish preferences rely on...

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Autores principales:	Ozan Isler, Simon Gächter, A. John Maule, Chris Starmer
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/287e120022224c1b983bc991fe396f42
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:287e120022224c1b983bc991fe396f422021-12-02T18:33:57ZContextualised strong reciprocity explains selfless cooperation despite selfish intuitions and weak social heuristics10.1038/s41598-021-93412-42045-2322https://doaj.org/article/287e120022224c1b983bc991fe396f422021-07-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93412-4https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Humans frequently cooperate for collective benefit, even in one-shot social dilemmas. This provides a challenge for theories of cooperation. Two views focus on intuitions but offer conflicting explanations. The Social Heuristics Hypothesis argues that people with selfish preferences rely on cooperative intuitions and predicts that deliberation reduces cooperation. The Self-Control Account emphasizes control over selfish intuitions and is consistent with strong reciprocity—a preference for conditional cooperation in one-shot dilemmas. Here, we reconcile these explanations with each other as well as with strong reciprocity. We study one-shot cooperation across two main dilemma contexts, provision and maintenance, and show that cooperation is higher in provision than maintenance. Using time-limit manipulations, we experimentally study the cognitive processes underlying this robust result. Supporting the Self-Control Account, people are intuitively selfish in maintenance, with deliberation increasing cooperation. In contrast, consistent with the Social Heuristics Hypothesis, deliberation tends to increase the likelihood of free-riding in provision. Contextual differences between maintenance and provision are observed across additional measures: reaction time patterns of cooperation; social dilemma understanding; perceptions of social appropriateness; beliefs about others’ cooperation; and cooperation preferences. Despite these dilemma-specific asymmetries, we show that preferences, coupled with beliefs, successfully predict the high levels of cooperation in both maintenance and provision dilemmas. While the effects of intuitions are context-dependent and small, the widespread preference for strong reciprocity is the primary driver of one-shot cooperation. We advance the Contextualised Strong Reciprocity account as a unifying framework and consider its implications for research and policy.Ozan IslerSimon GächterA. John MauleChris StarmerNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-17 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Ozan Isler Simon Gächter A. John Maule Chris Starmer Contextualised strong reciprocity explains selfless cooperation despite selfish intuitions and weak social heuristics
description	Abstract Humans frequently cooperate for collective benefit, even in one-shot social dilemmas. This provides a challenge for theories of cooperation. Two views focus on intuitions but offer conflicting explanations. The Social Heuristics Hypothesis argues that people with selfish preferences rely on cooperative intuitions and predicts that deliberation reduces cooperation. The Self-Control Account emphasizes control over selfish intuitions and is consistent with strong reciprocity—a preference for conditional cooperation in one-shot dilemmas. Here, we reconcile these explanations with each other as well as with strong reciprocity. We study one-shot cooperation across two main dilemma contexts, provision and maintenance, and show that cooperation is higher in provision than maintenance. Using time-limit manipulations, we experimentally study the cognitive processes underlying this robust result. Supporting the Self-Control Account, people are intuitively selfish in maintenance, with deliberation increasing cooperation. In contrast, consistent with the Social Heuristics Hypothesis, deliberation tends to increase the likelihood of free-riding in provision. Contextual differences between maintenance and provision are observed across additional measures: reaction time patterns of cooperation; social dilemma understanding; perceptions of social appropriateness; beliefs about others’ cooperation; and cooperation preferences. Despite these dilemma-specific asymmetries, we show that preferences, coupled with beliefs, successfully predict the high levels of cooperation in both maintenance and provision dilemmas. While the effects of intuitions are context-dependent and small, the widespread preference for strong reciprocity is the primary driver of one-shot cooperation. We advance the Contextualised Strong Reciprocity account as a unifying framework and consider its implications for research and policy.
format	article
author	Ozan Isler Simon Gächter A. John Maule Chris Starmer
author_facet	Ozan Isler Simon Gächter A. John Maule Chris Starmer
author_sort	Ozan Isler
title	Contextualised strong reciprocity explains selfless cooperation despite selfish intuitions and weak social heuristics
title_short	Contextualised strong reciprocity explains selfless cooperation despite selfish intuitions and weak social heuristics
title_full	Contextualised strong reciprocity explains selfless cooperation despite selfish intuitions and weak social heuristics
title_fullStr	Contextualised strong reciprocity explains selfless cooperation despite selfish intuitions and weak social heuristics
title_full_unstemmed	Contextualised strong reciprocity explains selfless cooperation despite selfish intuitions and weak social heuristics
title_sort	contextualised strong reciprocity explains selfless cooperation despite selfish intuitions and weak social heuristics
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/287e120022224c1b983bc991fe396f42
work_keys_str_mv	AT ozanisler contextualisedstrongreciprocityexplainsselflesscooperationdespiteselfishintuitionsandweaksocialheuristics AT simongachter contextualisedstrongreciprocityexplainsselflesscooperationdespiteselfishintuitionsandweaksocialheuristics AT ajohnmaule contextualisedstrongreciprocityexplainsselflesscooperationdespiteselfishintuitionsandweaksocialheuristics AT chrisstarmer contextualisedstrongreciprocityexplainsselflesscooperationdespiteselfishintuitionsandweaksocialheuristics
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Contextualised strong reciprocity explains selfless cooperation despite selfish intuitions and weak social heuristics

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